What is Taijutsu?

Taijutsu, the Art of the Body, is the heartwood of Bujinkan martial arts. It is the core of our practice and the basis of all of our movements, whether offensive or defensive, armed or unarmed. It is the combative expression of our strategic philosophy. It is our study hall and our playground. And it can be very hard to grasp.

Taijutsu is hard to grasp because it’s not something outside of you. We learn, clumsily, by being shown forms, by feeling techniques applied to us, by applying them to others in turn. But this is only a method for developing taijutsu in the practitioner. It is a didactic form, meant to help you discover and refine the principles of taijutsu in your own body and nervous system.

Taijutsu is not a form. But form is the way we learn taijutsu. The techniques are just the techniques. The taijutsu is you. This is confusing because we normally learn things to learn them, not to become what learning them makes us become. But like a composer playing the cello to deepen her understanding of the instrument and improve her ear, both in service of improving her capacity to express her art of composing, we practice forms to hone our understanding of taijutsu principles and improve our body’s ability to express its own art spontaneously. The composer’s art is not playing the cello, and ours is not repeating the forms.

What is taijutsu, then? I’d be a fool to say, and I don’t really know anyway. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. But what I do know, and will tell you, is where taijutsu comes from.

The Inner Architecture of Taijutsu

If we want to understand what taijutsu is, we need a way to recognize its unique fingerprint – a set of defining qualities that mark it as taijutsu and not something else. This isn’t about branding or tradition. It’s about identifying the inner architecture that gives the art its character: how it moves, how it adapts, and what it brings out in the people who study it. Like trail markings that help you find your way in unfamiliar terrain, these internal features help us navigate the art, stay oriented in our training, and recognize the thread of taijutsu no matter what technique or weapon we’re working with.

The four foundations described here – kamae, kurai dori, henka, and ninpō – offer a layered set of lenses through which to perceive and practice taijutsu. They’re like primary colors that, when blended and embodied, allow for an infinite palette of movement, strategy, and expression. Each principle reveals a different facet of the art, and together they provide a framework for cultivating taijutsu in a way that is distinctively yours while retaining the essential character and wisdom of the tradition.

Kamae 構え – Mastery of Posture

Kamae means posture in its richest sense, including not only the physical arrangement of your body in space but also your mental attitude, your intention, and your entire relationship to the situation. It comes both first and last. In the end, posture may be all you have. How do you face life? How do you face death? This is all kamae.

Physically, kamae means a posture that is dynamically correct. This means that, rather than being a prescription for how to stand still, it’s a description of a posture your body will repeatedly pass through when performing correct movement.

If you were to teach someone how to walk, you might break it down into a series of postures. You can do this easily by taking a few steps, pausing wherever you feel balanced, and calling that a posture. Because it illustrates the point, let’s try this.

Postures of Natural Walking

1. Natural Posture – standing neutrally, feet parallel and shoulder width apart, centered and relaxed, arms hanging down

2. Beginning Posture – feet parallel, right heel lifted, left arm swung slightly forward, right arm slightly back, leaning slightly forward

3. Half-step Posture – right heel placed out in front, weight back on flat left foot, arms swung in opposition slightly further 

4. Full-step Posture – weight shifted forward onto flat right foot, left foot out behind with heel raised, arms hanging down 

5. Single-leg Posture – all weight on right foot, left leg held bent with foot off the ground, arms swung in reverse direction

All I’ve done is taken a step from a neutral starting position and captured each of the positions where I’m capable of pausing. If you walk correctly, you will necessarily pass through each of these postures because these are the flipbook version of human walking. Similarly, if you’re doing taijutsu correctly, you will necessarily pass through each of the taijutsu kamae, because the kamae are the flipbook version of taijutsu. The art is in what happens between the frames.

It’s obvious if the postures are arrived at in this way, by working backward from movement, what is meant by kamae. They are not saying: if you stand this way, you can move well. They are saying: if you move well, you will find yourself standing this way. The refinements of the postures come from the movement.

It should also be clear that breaking movement down in this way provides a shortcut to learning: taijutsu is just moving from kamae to kamae. Compared to the full technical syllabus, there are a very small number of kamae to learn. A kamae is just a posture that makes your taijutsu available. They provide a platform for taijutsu, enabling you to strike, block, evade, and employ weapons freely. All of them have this in common, and they are an integrated set, each flowing into the others. Learn kamae and you learn taijutsu.

The kamae we have in taijutsu are a great gift from the past. It is not possible to reproduce the conditions that gave rise to them in the modern age. Generations of warriors studied, fought, learned, and passed on the knowledge of how to maximize the combative potential of the human body. They’ve handed down to us a map of all the major dynamically correct postures that will unlock that potential in our own bodies today, without us having to fight for our lives to earn the knowledge for ourselves. If I could pass on only one thing to preserve taijutsu into future generations, it would be the kamae.

Kurai Dori 位取り – Mastery of Position

Kurai dori means taking position. It’s the art of securing the advantage and shaping the encounter in your favor. Physically, it’s how you place yourself in relation to your opponent and environment, but it runs deeper than that. Kurai dori is about being in the right place, at the right time, on purpose.

While kamae is about how you shape your own body and mind, kurai dori is how you shape the whole situation. Though rarely named explicitly, it is central to taijutsu. Hatsumi sensei has said we must learn to master our environment, starting with our own body and radiating outward. Kurai dori includes everything that lies beyond our own posture—distance, timing, angles, psychology, the physical setting, even the weather.

Position often determines outcome. An inferior technique applied from a superior position can still succeed, while a brilliant technique from a poor position usually cannot. Distance is often decisive. Most of Hatsumi sensei’s videos open with the words “Martial Arts of Distance” in the introduction. All martial arts of survival are martial arts of distance. How do you survive a nuclear bomb? Distance alone will do it.

Distance is inextricably linked to time. We use the term ma-ai (間合い), which means “interval” and refers not only to spatial distance but to the time it takes to traverse it, the angle of attack, and the rhythm of the exchange. Time and space become fluid. If I move faster than you, I can cover more distance in the same moment, effectively making me closer. If I adjust angles and rhythm, I can create time for myself while denying it to you. So the art of taking position necessarily includes understanding timing, rhythm, angle, ability, and context.

Out for a drive one morning, finding the roads quite empty due to the early hour, I once said to my father, “Wow, the early bird really does get the worm!” He grinned and said, “Ahh, but the early worm gets eaten! And the second mouse gets the cheese.” Kurai dori is like this, taking everything into account.

Kurai dori also means being aware of and making creative use of the environment. The world around us is rich with obstacles and opportunities, weapons and ways out. From a pool cue leaning against a wall to an open bathroom window, we learn to see the landscape as a living part of the encounter. Taijutsu is a natural martial art that encourages us to see ourselves as part of nature, to make use of everything around us, and to avoid placing artificial boundaries around what is possible.

Practically, kurai dori means recognizing recurring patterns in the geometry of human combat. Attacks follow lines and arcs, forming familiar spatial relationships. With good kurai dori, you land in positions you recognize and have trained. With good kamae, you can apply your taijutsu from those positions. You learn which positions offer control, which don’t, and how to move fluidly between them without giving up advantage.

This gives your nervous system a compressed map of taijutsu. There are fewer key positions than techniques, and mastering those positions helps unlock the rest. Kurai dori and kamae together form the framework of taijutsu. Being in the right place, at the right time, with a posture that makes your taijutsu available – that is most of the art.

Henka 変化 – Mastery of Adaptation

We learn many principles in taijutsu training, but the way we learn is outside in, and the principles won’t really work for us until they flow from the inside out. Henka, the practice of principled variation, is the key to achieving this transformation. Henka is the art of adapting timeless principles to the moment.

Henka means change, variation, and transformation. Rivers flow, seasons change, planets spin around, and life finds its wending way. None of it is fixed. But in the flowing and changing, there is no deviation from the principles. Each fresh moment is a unique expression of the same underlying nature – nature itself isn’t changing, only the form is. This is henka.

I like to say that the best way to find your balance is to first lose it in one direction and then lose it in the other – then you know where the center is! The practice of henka is like this. The essence of the middle is defined by the edges.

When we learn a basic technique, we usually start with a specific form. This form is just one of many possible ways to perform the technique, as a rule. What is right or correct always depends on many variables, which are always changing, so there can be no absolutely correct form of any technique. Every version is a variant. 

The basic forms are chosen because they are central variants – the safest, most effective versions with the greatest margin for error, applicable to the widest range of likely situations. The mistake is taking these central variants to be the right and true way, failing to see that even these are just henka.

The right way to perform a technique is the way that works. It may seem like I’ve said nothing, but this is the whole point: the techniques don’t work; taijutsu works. You cannot craft a perfect technique simply because you cannot have perfect knowledge. The only sane plan is adaptation, fitting the principles to the moment. Principled variation is the core technique, and this is what you must practice if you wish to move beyond mimicry and into real competence.

In practical terms, henka is how taijutsu is learned and transmitted. The techniques are not the tradition; the feelings, philosophy, and principles that give rise to them are. So we start with a technique, a central variant, and then we play. We try it this way and that; forwards, backwards and upside down; with a weapon and without; with multiple attackers; with difficult terrain; with obstacles; with injuries. We experiment and see what happens. We explore what’s possible, and in doing so, learn what is not.

Henka is the art of finding unity by studying variation. If you look at all the varieties of bushes and trees in nature, you will find no sharp separation between them. The same is true for the inner and outer versions of a technique, like a wrist lock. It’s not that there are two distinct ways to lock the wrist. The wrist can be locked, and the range of variation spans from inner to outer. Nature is like this. Some birds never fly, but some squirrels do.

This ability to change fluidly while remaining grounded in principle is one of taijutsu’s defining strengths. It’s what makes the art alive. Sensei has said we must learn to be lucky. The practice of henka opens the senses so that we are able to catch opportunities others would miss. The more you practice henka, the luckier you’ll become.

Henka is not about being clever or spontaneous for its own sake, but about learning to improvise within a coherent framework so you can take full advantage of the opportunities that arise in each moment. If you fail to embody taijutsu principles, if you move randomly, it is not henka. But it is precisely these failures that will teach you how to apply the art, so you must seek them out! We learn more from failure than success. 

In training, you should be failing often and well, learning what works by finding where it breaks down, and learning how it works by understanding why it breaks down. This is how you find the feeling of taijutsu inside you. And when you find it, explore it, and learn to feel its distinctive flow, you will be able to spontaneously produce new forms which are no less valid than the originals. 

This is how the art is transmitted, how it lives and adapts, and how it becomes your own. When you learn forms, you are studying someone else’s taijutsu. This is essential, but it is just a starting point. To study your own taijutsu, you have to take it out of the display case and play!

Ninpō 忍法 – Mastery of Perspective

Ninpō is the uncommon sense that gives taijutsu its unique character. It is the principle of stealing in, of beating the odds, of persevering under threat using patience, strategy, stealth, and subterfuge.

At its surface, nin means to endure or to persevere – to remain unseen, patient, and composed. But beneath that stoic outer layer is a deeper idea: nin is the art of seeing clearly from an oblique angle. It’s about refusing to meet force with force, convention with convention. It is the practice of outflanking – not just physically, but conceptually. In this sense, ninpō is not only the spirit of patient endurance that has allowed this art to survive for so many generations, but also the strategic intelligence at the heart of taijutsu.

Hatsumi sensei has said never to get into a fight that you can’t win. This sounds obvious, but most of us don’t think this way. We think there are fights we should get into whether we can win or not. What if they come for my home? My family? Don’t I have to fight then?

No. You have to survive. You have to lie, cheat, steal, and manipulate conditions in your favor so you can escape with your life. And then you have to be patient. If they come for your home, help them move in. Then wait, plan, and prepare. If some terrible accident should befall them weeks later (who can say how it happened?), you can move back into your home then. This is the art of winning. Avoiding a fight that you can’t win does not mean you should lose. It means you should wait to get into the fight until you can win, or better yet, find a way to win without fighting at all. This is ninpō.

When people ask me what makes taijutsu different from other martial arts, I often say that we cultivate cheating as a first-class strategy. Real life is not a game. When it comes to survival, when it comes to protecting lives, anything goes. If you can’t think outside of the box, you may end up inside of one.

At its heart, ninpō is about seeing differently. It’s a way of approaching conflict – not just with skill or power, but with strategy, creativity, and misdirection. Ninpō encourages us to consider not just what is effective, but what is efficient, hidden, elegant, or unexpected. It implies an ability to view a situation from a perspective others would never consider, and acting decisively at the right moment instead of struggling at the wrong one. It’s the perspective that says: I don’t have to fight you where you are strong. I can choose where the fight happens, or whether it happens at all.

Ninpō is the art of unorthodox thinking, reversing assumptions, flipping the frame of the encounter, and moving diagonally across a problem. This kind of thinking serves a dual purpose. First is to prepare us to consider the broader context of any situation, to see things others miss, and to seize unexpected or unconventional opportunities. But this is also defensive training. By cultivating the ability to see the world through the eyes of ninpō, we learn to avoid underestimating a threat, because the principles we use to protect life can also be used to destroy it.

Finally, ninpō is about your own life. It is both the most abstract of the foundations and the most useful. Ruthless pragmatism, unconventional thinking, patient endurance, and the heart of a caretaking warrior will serve you well in any situation. With best preparation, and best timing, taking the best action. Becoming free from power. This is ninpō.

Conclusion: A Theory of Taijutsu

These four foundations together form a theory of taijutsu – not just what it is, but also how it is learned. As students, we all have a theory about what we’re doing. We think, for example, here are some techniques, and if I practice these as prescribed I will gradually get better at them. When I’m good enough at enough techniques, I will be good at fighting. But will you?

If you thoroughly study kamae, your body will learn to move in a way that works with or without weapons and always leaves you balanced and ready to attack or defend using your taijutsu techniques. If you thoroughly study kurai dori, your nervous system will learn to recognize the positions you end up in most frequently so that you’ll instantly know what to do when you get there. If you thoroughly study henka, your intuition will adapt the taijutsu techniques and movement principles you’ve learned to work within the unique constraints of the moment. And if you thoroughly study ninpō, you will learn to see what others miss, to avoid unnecessary conflict, and approach every situation with strategic intelligence. This is my theory of taijutsu.

The highest aim of martial arts is to end conflict. This is another way to look at the four foundations in the modern age. With kamae, you learn to stop fighting against your own body by becoming a master of posture. With kurai dori, you learn to stop fighting against your environment by becoming a master of positioning. With henka, you learn to stop fighting against change by becoming a master of adaptation. And with ninpō, you learn to stop fighting against life by becoming a master of perspective. In this way, taijutsu practice becomes a personal journey of self-mastery and a foundation for a healthy, happy, peaceful life.